


i've got two faces (i need your help to take him out)

by therestisdetail



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: goddamn fucking winter solider!au no one ever asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-06-02 16:22:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6573361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestisdetail/pseuds/therestisdetail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meyer is seventeen years old and it is dangerous and it is stupid, but someone he trusts once told him to try just that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Meyer is six years old, and he knows that is too old for crying. They have all learned that. The girl in the bed next to his has freckles, and green eyes, and she knows. That is why she buries her face into her pillow and tries to slow down her breathing. They can still hear her. And when мать comes for inspection she will hear her too. If they fail inspection, they will all be punished. She shouldn’t cry. (No one stops him when he reaches over and holds her hand.)  


 

 _Asset 73C594 does not train the small ones, but sometimes they are brought to observe. He thinks these ones are different. Maybe he has been on ice since last time. A girl asks for his name. The Asset doesn’t have a name. He gives them his designation number instead. (If they forget he repeats it again, slowly, in english and phonetic to help them remember. Seven Three Charlie Five Nine Four.)_  


 

Meyer is nine years old and does not care what the thing that follows at the heel of the men in clipboards is, but not to speak is to admit to being short of breath. “It’s a robot,” says Sasha, “-the casing came off the arm. But I heard it’s US-made.” There are immediate disagreements; it is named for winter, or so they say, and its english is more thickly accented than theirs is anymore. Meyer notes the blotches in Sasha’s cheeks. “It lets the kids call it Charlie when they first arrive,” Meyer says, and they all fall quiet to consider this as they run. (It does seem like a very American thing for a walking weapon to allow.)  


 

 _Sometimes the Asset gets confused. Children are not always small. There is a ~~girl~~ ~~woman~~ girl and she is crying because they had to punish him, he tried to do something wrong, he was bad, and he can’t speak through the stitches she’s putting in his face to say it’s okay so she’s crying while she does. “I didn’t know. I thought we were helping. I’ll report them, I’ll-”_ _(He never sees her again. Maybe she got to go home.)_  


 

Meyer is thirteen years old and spitting blood. It shows up on the floor; everything is very white, here. He’ll do better next time. There is no other option. He’s waiting and there’s blood in his mouth and he’s not sure why he does it, but that _thing_ is just watching him, even though the next tests have started. “It’s Meyer,” he snarls, and stares back. It’s dangerous, stupid _._ He wouldn’t take it back for the world. “If you were wondering. Want something?” The thing doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, for a very long time. “Do that,” it says, voice lower than Meyer would have imagined. Scratchier, like he hasn’t slept, or slept too much. (“They’ve been taught the same right choices you were. Do that instead.”)  


 

_The Asset doesn’t know why he says it, and that should have been the first warning sign. Sign of malfunction. The Boy-Who-Is-Called-Meyer is the smallest, but he performs above expectation, demonstrates required competencies and capacity. He is quiet after, still, almost as still as the girl at his feet. Later the Asset is to dispose of her body, but there is something wrong, and she weighs too little, has wide blank eyes that are too green. His arm whirs, recalibrates, and bone snaps. He’s shaking. He didn’t mean to do that. He meant to be gentle he tried he doesn’t know why that’s important but- He didn’t- (“Fuck,” someone says, above his head, and “It hasn’t even been a month,” and “Put him in the fucking chair.”)_

 

Meyer is fifteen years old, and has known Charlie’s face for a decade. The others make jokes about wiring and circuits that go further than the arm. The few who get to train with him say he is not human, and they aren’t joking. But Meyer sees how the tilt of his mouth changes and watches for a slight dilation of the pupil, sees eyebrows draw together just a fraction, notes a tiny off-beat exhale as Charlie leans into the hit with intent to bleed so he can smile red and tell his charge they did well. He knows when Charlie doesn’t remember him. (He has had ten years to learn these things, because in ten years Charlie’s face hasn’t changed at all.)  


 

 _The Asset is taken off ice and told he will be training those with potential. He is told that he has done this before and will know what to do. The littlest of them is also the fastest, the most vicious, and there’s a stillness to him that you cannot teach. He also… improvises. “I was told to do that,” the little one says, once, and doesn’t expand. The Asset does not ask his name. The Asset is not allowed to have favourites. (The Asset thinks; this one will run. The Asset thinks; they’ll send me after him. They always do.)_  


 

Meyer is seventeen years old, he is running through snow, he is looking for shelter, he is not fast enough. Meyer is holding a knife against exposed skin and making a threat he has no intention of keeping, because it took until today to realise how strongly he recoils from the thought. He is afraid but more than that he is _angry,_ and he doesn’t want to die. “I am not permitted.” Charlie says, then almost an afterthought; “I tried. Once.” It is almost soft. (It is almost soft, so Meyer stabs the knife at Charlie’s throat instead.)  


 

 _The little one is very strong and very smart and it is not enough. The Asset has a metal grip on the little one’s wrist before he can put steel to pulse and find a different kind of freedom. The Asset knows is not permitted to let him have that, either. He knows he has tried, once, to have so clear a rule with no memory of its cause. Then the little one shoves the knife to the Asset’s throat until the Asset bleeds, which is familiar too, and the Asset allows as far as he is able. “I am not permitted,” he says again. (He knows he has tried, once.)_  


 

Meyer is seventeen years old and speaks with the wild invincibility of terror. “They put you to sleep,” Meyer says, ignoring Charlie’s blood on the knife, on his own palm, “-you wake to a new face telling you what is permitted.” In many ways, he is weaker than Charlie, he knows that. Can’t hit as hard. More breakable. Less machine, maybe, and he half-laughs at the thought. He has seen men he wouldn’t spit on put Charlie on his knees and break open his lip just to show they can. He keeps talking. “How long until it would have been me?” In the back of his mind, мать smiles with teeth, and tells them that weak-willed inclusion of personal ambition results in ill-defined parameters of command. (He is the best in his class and he has a Future. He knows that, like a lead weight.)  


 

 _The Asset ~~Charlie~~ is malfunctioning ~~is reassigned~~ reports to the Boy-Named-Meyer ~~the child is in danger~~_ _~~please~~ no don’t I’ll be good I can be good ~~run runrun~~ retrieve and return ~~reset required~~ _ __mission parameters unclear_ ~~could get away~~ reset required ~~not permitted to leave~~ we could get away ~~put the mouthguard in before you put him in the fucking chair jesus christ~~ they cannot hurt the little one if we are gone rUN (“What if I permit it, Charlie?” says the Little Handler, and the Asset releases his grip and bares his neck so the Little Handler knows he can be Good.) _  


 

Meyer is seventeen years old and it is dangerous and it is stupid, but someone he trusts once told him to try just that _._ He puts the knife down when it would be easiest to press up and then walk away. He tangles his fingers into Charlie’s hair just roughly enough to tug his head down, tug him closer. The weight above him is warm, at least. (Later, carried to a safe-house tucked into the cliffside and snowed in, he sleeps and the warmth curls around him and stays.)  
~~~~

_~~The Asset~~ is designated ‘Charlie’ and this order is easy to follow, but the others can be confusing. Even when he shakes, when he malfunctions and is no use, ~~the Little Handler~~ Meyer says they cannot go back, they cannot reset. Meyer takes foolish chances, does not understand that Charlie is here to bleed first, bleed instead. Maybe he does not understand because he is young. And yet Charlie knows he would kill every face he’s ever known, if it kept Meyer young. (“Tell me about New York,” Meyer says, when he’s holding Charlie, when Charlie falls to pieces and forgets where he is again and the air tastes like dusk, like the the Lower East Side. “Where did you grow up, moyo zolotse?”)_


	2. Chapter 2

 

Benny isn't a fan of Budapest, right up until the moment a crazy leather-muzzled motherfucker with a metal arm and a mess of dark curls plays chicken with an armoured car and wins. Benny might be interested. You know. A little.

Turns out the target isn't the obvious.  Kid looks Benny's own age, even if the file says he's got at least a year on him, maybe more. The file says he's stolen, some sorta Soviet indoctrination trial gone all haywire when the Motherland's favourite Frankenstein project got protective over his pet, or something. The file doesn't know shit, because after half a day of tailing these two Benny is pretty sure if this ruskie kid said he wanted a footrest then Big Dark and Scary would be on his hands and knees in a heartbeat, and he wouldn't even get off on it neither. "Thanks," Esta says drily in his earpiece. "For the colour commentary there, Ben."

It's only half a day, because the kid they say is called Meyer spots him when he doesn't want to be seen. This is not a thing that has ever happened before. 

Okay, Benny is interested in this one. Benny is interested in Meyer.

It takes a while to catch up with them again. Fuck it. He's working with paleolithic weapons in this shitshow of a digital world, they should cut him some slack. 

The thing is, it's not as hard to follow as it could have been, because their kills are invariably clean. Maybe not always as quick as they could be, but they hit to end it. They are not looking for a show. It's rare enough in this game. Get down to the bare bones of it and Benny knows what he's dealing with; one of them is young and one of them is soft, and it's not the same person. 

He finds them (is allowed) in a warehouse in Berlin. He's armed (fifteen arrows, each a different result). He'd live maybe a minute if things go bad. Ain't that the fun of it though. (He wouldn't go alone.) He's licensed to kill by the United States Congress and grabs a a fistful of Hubba Bubba at the airport because honestly, god bless America.

"Hey now," he says, hands to the sky. Ain't a fucker he's ever put in the ground who he regretted, so when his instincts hesitate he pays attention. "Hey there. So I'm thinking you've been chasing the same guys I have. I'm thinking you and the Robocop you've got on a leash there might want to have a chat with me."

The CIA's (and KGB's and Interpol's, including but not limited to) favourite public-denial lawsuit-bait horror story tilts his head slightly. He's not kneeling, exactly, but he's pressed against the wall and his eyes are on Meyer like that kid is the only man left alive. "I should bring you the leash?" He says absently, voice even, everyday, Benny's mother's tone as she sets out the weekly groceries. Meyer flinches.

Benny's first instinct is to laugh. 

He wants to laugh, because that's what he does, when the the world is... like this. It's a fucking joke and no one knows it better. But he also knows, instinctively, that this kid - this kid who he thinks he could understand, who might understand him, given a fucking chance - will kill him on the spot if he does. 

He doesn't laugh. Meyer speaks in Russian, words that aren't aimed at Benny, a few brief but fervent words. Gentle words. Gentle and with great effort. Oh man, this one will kill for them and will enjoy it. 

"You were sent to terminate us," Meyer says to him, hand still at Charlie's wrist even as he turns back to Benny.

"Yeah," Benny says, because it's true. "Yeah, I was."

He pops his bugglegum. It's loud. Loud enough it might even hurt, to someone who has super-serum hearing and an aversion to the unexpected. Neither of them move a muscle, not a flicker. 

"But I was thinking," Benny says, "you fellas might be able to convince me to make a different call." 

Turns out, he and Meyer do understand each other after all.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

In 1941, Mary marries the boy of her dreams. Angela locks herself away for a week and pleads illness, but the less kind folk on the street murmur about jealousy, never knowing how much they have understood and misunderstood at the same time. Angela always has time for Sal, though, so when he sits outside her window and throws stones at it for two hours in a row she lets him in.

He lays on her bed and lets her cry into the crook of his neck, traces gentle circles on her back and doesn't speak. Everyone knows there's some sort of reason Sal's old man never liked him, why he's the one getting the belt if Antonio comes home late and drunk. Angela knows more, and Sal lets her cry because he understands.

He's quick, is the thing. Quick with a smile and a laugh. Smart mouth, quick with a joke, quick to talk back at folks who'd not hesitate to knock him down for it and often do. Quick on his feet taking girls dancing, and nice girls like Sal, because he has an unerring sense for which ones want to go home still nice girls and which ones don't. Even if he didn't, gossip travels quick, and for Sal it's this: he'll stop if you ask, even if you don't ask with words.

Angela loves Sal. She thinks she might even be able to fall in love with him.

"Can you imagine?" He asks when she tells him so, through hiccuping sobs. He's got a crooked grin and his voice goes up an octave. "That nice Ianotti girl and the Lucania brat, such a shame. But then, they did marry awful quick, if you catch my meaning."

She punches him in the shoulder half-heartedly, finds she can smile. "That's not a no."

He kisses her half-closed fist. "No," he agrees. "That's not a no."

  
  
*

  
In 1942, Sal is lying on her bed again, but there's nothing tender in what she wants to say to him. She wants to hit him, hit him for real. She could. She has before. But the side of his face is black and blue already, and he's clutching the enlistment papers like a lifeline. Like they're all he's got.

"I can't stay here." He says, barely loud enough to hear.

She wants to hit him. She traces his lip instead, not stopping when her fingers meet crusted blood, brushing it away. "I can't stay," he says. It's her turn to understand, but it's hard to do.

He looks good in uniform. A smirking swaggering American dream. He hugs her with an arm around her waist and the other hand cupping the back of her head, hard and tight enough to lift her feet from the ground for a moment. She's certain her nails are digging into his shoulders enough to hurt.

"Come home, punk." She tells him, and feels him smile against her neck.

"Like they could fuckin' stop me." He pulls away and looks her in the eye. "And your fancy college fella? He puts one step out of line, you write me. Yeah?"

"Yeah." She says.

Three months later she reads from the same script, more or less. Jimmy looks good in uniform. She straightens his collar even though she doesn't need to. "Come home, darling." She tells him.

He hugs her, but carefully, like she might break, and kisses her on the mouth.

More or less the same script.

  
  
*

  
  
Sal does not come back. Jimmy does, and in her worst moments, she wishes he hadn't.

There are a lot of doctors and a lot of nurses, and they always seem to have something to explain. She listens to them all, listens when the doctor comes with the accent she cannot trust. (It's not fair. She doesn't care.) "It could make him whole," he says. "It could do more than that."

"Is it dangerous?"

His silence is an answer and she signs nothing. Jimmy sleeps. They says he'll be able to walk. They put his face back together. It's a long time before he can speak, and when he does it's not to his wife.

"Yes," he says, and the doctor turns his eyes to her. She signs the papers. It's Jimmy's choice. She wants to hit him, and traces his lip instead, gentle. She wants to hit him for real, never has, but she wants to.

And so she signs, and they take him to the lab. They let her kiss him, hold him, say it will be alright. They let her stay and watch him as he is sat down and sealed in glass and they pump those chemicals in. They let her watch him die.

The books they write about it later like to talk about the doctors who tried to stop her from going in, how she knocked them down before any serum ever reached her bloodstream (like Sal taught her when they were kids, like her daddy never approved of). They generally don't like talking about the screaming that came first ("stop, you're hurting him, stop turn it off TURN IT OFF-")

The books they write about it later agree on the important points: Jimmy Darmody dies in his wife's arms. A week later, Lady Liberty hits the front page. America's Sweetheart, more than human, with victory curls and blood on her hands.

  
  
*

  
A plane headed down, and relief. Ice. The long dark. Lights. A girl saying the right words and wearing the wrong kind of bra, please, try a little harder. Lies and confessions and decades gone past. Films with her name in them. Books with her face. SHIELD. Margaret Rohan (not Thompson, never Thompson) with her millions and her metal suit. Owen, the voice in the walls. Rosetti, running from himself and with good reason. Daughter, which might be a name or might be a title, royalty from another world. Benny, the boy perched high. Meyer, the boy with secrets. And-

_"Salvatore?"_

  
" _Who the hell is Salvatore?"_

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Benny is supposed to be watching Meyer’s six, which is never boring, both because Meyer is Meyer and because there’s a tendency they don’t discuss for targets to drop before they even get in Benny’s range, so he’s free to improvise a little with the spare time.  
  
A good thing, in this case. A good half tonne of sparking semi-sentient metal shouldn’t be able to move so quietly.  
  
“Mey,” he says, closed channel.  
  
“Take it.”  
  
Benny’s not sure if it counts as asking permission if you’re already moving, already feeling half an inch outside your skin and couldn’t stop if you tried. “If I can’t make it, I’m dead.“  
  
“If you can’t make that,” Meyer says evenly, “you’d have been dead years ago.”  
  
Benny hits bullseye. Like he always does.  
  
 

  
  
*

  
   
  
They’re wary about making Meyer a part of the play for a long time. Benny knows how that feels, if not for the same reason. How frustrating it is, to be there and to be ready while hushed arguments escalate behind closed doors between civilians who have more heft than they know what to do with, who have their own histories gnawing at the back of their necks. SHIELD are boring fucks, but at least they don’t get themselves twisted up pretending to care about you.  
  
Personally, he has what fun with it he can. Reprograms one of the Iron Lady’s fancy clocks to a countdown to the 28th, like it’s a party, like this world gives a shit. Insists he was just trying to help clear things up while Esta reads him the riot act for ‘exacerbating a delicate situation’ and ‘making a national treasure cry’.  
  
Meyer doesn’t care if Benny dies before he sees eighteen, Meyer just cares whether or not he dies. There’s a difference he doesn’t have the words to explain. Besides, he figures only two types of people who would understand the difference, and Benny doesn’t need Meyer’s file to work out which one he is.  
  
There are raised voices in the conference room; he finds two cheap beers in the back of the fridge and searches Meyer out.  
  
Benny finds him at the balcony, gun in his lap taken apart for cleaning, though he isn’t touching it, eyes on the skyline, searching out something in the silhouettes with too much focus. Benny resists the urge to follow trajectory and think in shapes and line and space, can just about do it if he focuses on the angle of Meyer’s eyelashes pressing together when he blinks. Which building - it’s none of his business. He doesn’t need to look.  
  
“I don’t think,” Meyer says quietly, “anyone else I’ve known could have made that shot.”  
  
Praise doesn’t sound like that, not so matter of fact; it hits the base of Benny’s spine anyway with a shiver of warmth. He stays standing even though he wants to sit. It would feel closer.  
  
“They’ll come around. They just gotta talk a bunch about their feelings first.”  
  
Meyer half-smiles. “I’ll cede to the expert.”  
  
“Ain’t even you they’re worried about.” Benny mulls over that for a moment. “Which isn’t a glowing recommendation of their judgement, but still.”  
  
“Then they are wasting their time on a ghost continents away. As you know.”  
  
“Sure,” Benny says. “Absolutely. But I’m just saying, if he happens to slumming it in, oh fuck, let’s say Brooklyn, and he takes it into his fucking fried-ass mind to ruin everything by going soviet grade murder-crazy on the wrong person standing too close to you, you owe me twenty bucks.”  
  
Meyer raises an eyebrow.  
  
“That’s twenty dollars,” Benny allows magnanimously. “And a snickers.”  
  
“Fifty,” Meyer says, absently. “And I get to tell you what I have done to men who have said less about him than you just did.”  
  
Electric, and fuck but Benny can taste it. “How old were you? The first time?”  
  
Meyer is still already, so it shouldn’t be possible for him to give such an impression of freezing up for a moment, but it’s there all the same.  
  
“I was fourteen,” Benny says, and punctuates it by holding out the other beer and watching for something. A blink. A- something.  
  
Meyer doesn’t take the beer but he does stand up, into Benny’s space but shoulders shifting back slightly to soften it, eyes on Benny’s. Open, maybe, or on the edges of it. Tired, maybe. Benny doesn’t lean in. He fucking doesn’t.    
  
“… guess."  
  
"You’re an asshole.” Benny’s not sure whether he’s elated because he was right or because he thinks he caught the flicker of a real smile. Meyer turns away to quick for Benny to be sure. “Anyone ever told you that?” He calls at Meyer’s retreating back, then appeals to the empty balcony in general. “There’s a fucking asshole right there, comrades!”  
  
 

  
  
*  
  
 

  
  
“… and then I went off script, and made an offer, and Itty Bitty Spider said thank you and yes but Ghost In The Shell freaked out, likely because they’ve been sticking electrodes in his brains for seventy years, went to ground and hasn’t made contact since. You know, are you really sure you don’t want to film this?”  
  
“Benny.”  
  
“I’m just saying, if you really get off so much on repeating the same conversation every time the national threat level shifts we could film this right now while my hair looks good and then you guys can get together in fresh suits and circlejerk while you play it on repeat even when I’m out of the countr-”  
  
“ _Benny_.”  
  
 

  
  
*

  
   
  
The worst bullshit about this is that it happens at home. Not any kind of Make This House A Home bullshit, fuck that, but this piece of shit hole in the wall is _home_ and that’s what makes this fuckery hard to swallow. That and the blood. The blood is also hard to swallow, but Benny knew that already.  
  
He’s not sure how they knew where he lives.  
  
Benny makes a good sixteen out of twenty, which in mathematical terms is frankly a glowing success, but in real life terms means he’s pretty sure he’s got a collapsed lung and damage to a major artery. The thing is, he has an arrow for this. He has an arrow for- fuck, you know. He’s reaching for it and hoping it’s a quick as was promised when something heavy pins him down and breaks number seventeen’s neck with sliding kick.  
  
“Fifty bucks and a snickers,” he says pointedly, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind as his fingers fail to close around the arrow and metal fingers close on his neck, although it comes out a lot more like a wordless grunt. It takes another few moments to work out that said metal fingers are not pressing down more than it took to get him to the floor.  
  
“Stay,” whispers the world’s most wanted part-metal psychopathic nightmare, and then pats his head twice extremely awkwardly before launching itself at the poor fuckers who lived this long. Benny gropes at his earpiece, watches for a moment then turns and ignores the sounds.  
  
“Es-”  
  
“BENNY. BENNY, COME IN.”  
  
“Remaining hostiles down,” he says, trying to keep from inhaling too sharply while he can hear Esta on the line trying to keep her tone even, asking for a status update like she’s fucking drowning. “Cause of death being, uh, stabbed a whole lot and all over.”  
  
“Benny we need-”  
  
“Send recovery. Debrief coming. Wait up for me, yeah?”  
  
He switches off after that, hoping it is enough. The shifting shadow in the corner moves back, towards a window. Nah. He’s lost more blood than he’d like to think about, but no. Not this time.  
  
“Hi.”  
  
The shadow in the corner makes a brief aborted movement; it seems a bit alarmed.  
  
“Hi there, we’ve met. I’m Benny.” He really has lost a lot of blood, and there are two ceilings, but he’s pretty sure he can do this. “Also I’m hurt, so Meyer will be coming.”  
  
The shadow shifts again. Makes itself smaller, folds in. Benny tries to add something about happy reunions when two ceilings become four and suddenly it’s only a firm grip against the back of his head grounding him. He thinks he sees curled hair, sees it as a halo like a kid would, like one of those fucking paintings.  
  
“He does not like bananas,” someone says quietly, in Benny’s ear. “He will not complain but he does not like them. No handcuffs, not even pretend. Your friends, they are coming and you can sleep.”  
  
He really shouldn’t believe it.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

"Is that the plot of the next Star Trek movie?" Benny says eventually. "It sounds like a leak from the next Star Trek movie. Don't fuck with those guys, they have lawyers."

"My people have long believed that even the Nine Realms cannot contain it all. The potential created by every life, every decision we make." Daughter is lying on the couch, hair falling in loose curls over her shoulder, where they blend with Billie's as she snuggles closer. "As there are many worlds, so may there be many of this world."

"Well it doesn't sound so stupid when the _literal deity_ says it."

 

 

 

> _5 October 2013, in Budapest: Benny makes a different call, Meyer is Meyer, and Charlie does not yet remember but will._

 

 

Benny has his orders. Benny is told the Soldier is the greater risk. His gut says otherwise, so he makes a different call, and back-up can quite honestly go fuck itself.

He brings in Meyer, the unreadable, the unknown quantity, the one person he's met so far that might understand.

He brings in Russian Robocop, who it turns out is called Charlie, who it turns out is also Uncle Sam's most picturesque military tragedy Salvatore Lucania.

Benny has a few choice words for his fifth grade history teacher. Four letter words.

 

*

 

In the first days afterwards, Meyer stumbles through snow and Charlie - Meyer can't, won't call him anything else - keeps his distance. When Meyer turns, looks at him, he goes still and waits, so Meyer stops doing that. He's Red Room trained; he doesn't need to look to know. Sometimes Charlie is there. Sometimes he is not, and Meyer finds a misshappen rock pile, a pattern they'd always whispered to each other the trainers never knew. He goes left instead of right. He finds a fur coat, made for someone much taller, someone fully grown. There is cash in the pocket. He wears it and keeps going.

Two days later they reach a significant enough population, and Meyer buys food, buys what they need. He finds the least reputable rooms available and rents a room on the third floor, before unlocking that door and then leaving to break into the first empty room he'd noted at check-in two floors down.

Charlie arrives three hours later, and puts the window back in with great care.

He strips off his jacket and shirt and puts them near the fire to dry, which is sensible, which makes sense. He keeps below Meyer's eyeline and to the back of the room, which doesn't. They haven't spoken in three days, not since Charlie bared his neck and Meyer decided not to press the knife down. No cause for alarm, not by certain standards.

Charlie has scars that are new and is shaking when he tries to sit still.

"How long ago did you eat?" Meyer asks, after a brief check, fingers running across skin in search of what he is afraid of. Charlie's hesitation over the question leads to a realisation, unwelcome, a hard impact, that he is asking wrong. He tries again. "Charlie. How long ago were you fed?"

"I don't know." Charlie says.

Meyer sits him in a chair. Meyer puts water in his hands and makes him finish it. Meyer finds bread, tears it up small. "Do you remember having this before?"

Charlie shakes his head.

He leaves the crust, pulls at the soft centre. Charlie leans in just a little, and takes the pieces in his mouth, brushing Meyer's fingers with cold-chapped lips. It's fine. It's-

He's distracted and too close, off guard. He knows better. In the Red Room, what this would earn him is dead. Here what this earns him is hands ghosting his hips, a tug closer between Charlie's legs as he sits on the bed and looks up at Meyer, leans forward to allow two fingers to press deeper into his throat. Something in Meyer's chest drops away, leaves a space and burning embers.

"Stop," Meyer says.

Charlie pulls back, penitent, but presses his mouth against Meyer's palm instead. "Your body wants," he says, sweet and roughened. Like it's simple.

Meyer wants, like he's falling, like there's something sparking across his skin that he doesn't understand and can't control. Meyer wants like he did before, when his hands were smaller and Charlie's fitted over them, showing him how to load each gun in turn, showing them how to hit home without breaking bone.

"Stop." Meyer says. Charlie does as he is told.

Meyer locks himself in the bathroom and stares at the mould between dirty and broken tiles until his heart rate returns to normal.

 

  
*

 

Sal picks her up with a black eye and a beatific grin. Grabs her around the waist and lifts, exuberant but not enough to distract her. She traces the mark, makes promises she can't keep.

"Sal, jesus, did he-"

"I made it for the first round, right? Tonight is good."

Tonight, despite everything, is good.

He's a great dancer. She is too. They draw eyes, across the room, and she has enough change left over to buy him a drink too.

He puts his hands low on her hips when she presses close, allows her to set the pace, push forward and hook a leg around his. She bites; he's never minded. "Your boy," he says softly.

"Out of town," she says wryly, because it is completely true.

"Angie-"

"Mary is _gone_."

He blinks, at that. He tucks her hair back. He looks like he wants to apologise, and Angela couldn't bear that.

Peggy Lee hums through the air, and they smile into each other's grimaces, kiss it away. They won't do right, not like they should. They'll pretend, of course they will, but they don't have to tonight. Everything is not right, and neither are they.

He makes sure it's inside, makes sure it's comfortable. Her back against the wall and him on his knees, at first. She pulls his hair and calls his name when she comes the first time, leans back when he lifts her up before he asks if he can, if she permits it, if he's done alright.

"Sal," she says. "If you don't fuck me _right now_ -"

  
  
  
*

 

 

He comes to Meyer with Rohan-tech, a tiny bright slip of metal. It has headphones.

"I asked Angela," he says. "About the song."

There were videos, sometimes. Before, when they were making their own targets and cutting a path across eastern europe. Places that had had the chair and the restraints. Places that had the videos from before, of a boy who still wore an american uniform, who crawled to the corner of the room and curled in on himself, who swore in english like a champion no matter the bruises he earned, who sang to himself over and over when he was alone. As if it might help. Places that are scorch marks on the map.

Meyer hadn't shared the videos, but that stuck. Humming the tune had been an act of desparation on one of the bad days, a shot in the dark when his _zolotse_ had been pulling at scar tissue and metal and trying to tear himself apart to feel free, had begged for it, begged to have more than that cut away, to be nothing of a threat. It had helped. It helped enough. It became a habit.

"Good," Meyer says. He means it.

"She gave me all of them." He says, moving closer. Meyer is sitting and has to look up at him. "Owen too. The songs Salvatore liked, in case they help."

"I'm glad," Meyer says, and means it.

"You don't call me Charlie anymore," he says, sinking to his knees. Meyer wants to pull him to his feet. Meyer wants to drop to the ground.

"Do you want me to?" Meyer asks, because he has to. It's a learning curve. Both of them. Him learning that he can admit that he wants, and his _zolotse_ , learning how to want at all.

"You gave it to me," he says. "It's good."

"I didn't give you anything," Meyer promises, when he can, when his throat isn't so constricted that he can't breathe. He'd always assumed that- oh, fuck.

"It was a shortened form of your designation." Meyer says. "If we were too young to say it easily. I didn't - you. I think it was you, first."

He turns that over for a moment, says nothing. Meyer is as still as he can be. He should never, never have presumed that something like that. That it was remembered.

"I want to be Charlie." says Charlie.

"I want to kiss you." says Charlie.

"Do you wan-" says Charlie, before Meyer catches his breath for him and holds it for as long as he can.

 

 

 

> _5 October 2013, in Budapest: Benny makes a different call, Meyer makes something resembling a joke, Charlie has more faith than they know what to do with._

 

 

Benny has his orders. Benny is told the Soldier is the greater risk. His gut says this is bullshit, so he makes a different call, but sends for back-up when he should.

The ultimatum is not complicated. They tell Meyer that they want him. They don't want Charlie, except in a box. The archer drops to the ground and approaches with hands raised and a smirk, relays the message. It's the first time Meyer has heard him speak, but not the first time he's looked him in the eye, taking turns to shadow each other across three countries before reaching here and now.

Meyer agrees. Charlie doesn't  try to fight the shackles or the needle at his neck at all because Meyer tells him to be good, to be still.

The men in black stand down, somewhat, once Charlie is on the floor and Meyer tries very hard to concentrate on saying the right things while his veins are singing with the need to do something about it. Benny has stepped a little to the side, and is playing with one of his strangely shaped arrows rather than paying attention.

"We're going to need to take precautions," the man apparently in charge is saying. "Until you sign. You understand."

"Aw, Tonino," the archer says. "We're all friends here."

"Shut up, Siegel-" the guy starts, and then the archer closes his fingers hard around the arrowhead he has been playing with.

It looks a lot like a modified EMP and doesn't make much sound, but everyone in the room wearing an earpiece certainly does before they drop to the ground twitching. Less... less distracted, Meyer might have found the squealing amusing.

Meyer shoots anything moving enough to still be a threat with Tonino's own gun. Between him and the archer they manage to move Charlie, heavy and unconscious with his arm sparking static, towards the stairs.

"Car. A floor down. Hotwired it already."

The archer goes to take the wheel. Meyer cedes the driver's seat so he can haul Charlie into the back and keep a hand on Charlie's neck, right on his still-there pulse, because he needs the moment by moment reassurance.

"Orders were to take Soldier boy there in for trial, right? And I'm thinking you probably don't need that truckful of hardware if a short trip to the Hague really is the gameplan. I'm thinking that the whole rig looks real nice all set up, but there's all these naked wires and even our OH&S might have an issue with it. He's such a fun guy, Tonino. Shitty liar though. My name is Benny." Benny pauses to breathe, or so Meyer assumes. "How did you know that I was going to do that?"

Meyer didn't know for sure. Meyer has Charlie's head and shoulders in his lap and he knows that Charlie will be confused when he wakes, might be confused that he wakes at all. Meyer didn't know for sure, but they both know he'd do it himself first. He'd do it fast and clean and break Charlie's neck before he let him be strapped down again.

"Well," Meyer says. "I'm a very trusting person."

Benny laughs so hard he almost veers off the road.

 

*

 

Charlie is dreaming again, heart rate spiking as he trembles, so Benny shakes him awake. It's probably not highly recommended, but he's the first to admit inaction has never been his strong suit; has never been an option. People have said so. There's a space in their bed that Meyer is two days and a border check away from filling. But the thing is, Benny woke half hard from a dream of his own and he likes how Charlie leans into his grip before he's even properly awake, likes how he buries his face in the crook of Benny's neck and lets Benny direct his hands - metal and soft skin both - wherever Benny wants them.

He's greedy when Benny has him pinned. The only time he ever is, but they can work on that. When Meyer is here he'll tell Charlie to put it in words, and Charlie will say _closer, harder_ like he's drowning, and Benny will oblige. But Meyer is not here, so Benny keeps it simple and holds him by the jaw not the neck, takes both himself and Charlie in hand, only a little rough. Plays nice.

Afterwards Charlie wraps both arms around Benny's waist and tucks himself close while Benny gives up on cleaning the mess he's made over Charlie's chest and retraces the marks his fingernails left on one shoulder. "Gonna tell me what that was about?" Benny asks offhand, as they're slipping back to sleep, tapping a finger at Charlie's temple.

"Took me out back," Charlie says drowsily, against Benny's collarbone. "Gun in my mouth, so Mey didn't have to." Benny can feel Charlie's lips as he speaks. Benny can feel them, in the momentary pause, a barely-there press against his skin. Soft and fond. "You said you weren't angry. Because you knew I'd tried my best."

What Benny knows is: this shit would be easier if I knew when to shut the fuck up.

  
  
  
*

 

"In terms of rooms, Sir-" Owen says.

"With arrangements pending approval- " Owen says.

"Hey," Benny says. "It's cool man. I get it."

"I have instructions to-"

"No no, it's fine." Benny says, suspiciously cheerful. "It's fine right?"

Charlie makes a noncommital noise, rolls over. Meyer looks amused but is saying nothing.

"I'm just thinking like-" Benny says.

"Do you have a record and replay function?" Benny asks.

"It's just, he's got some _ideas_ -" Meyer says, forlornly.

Esta tells him, with no small amount of admiration, that she has never seen residency permissions processed quite so fast.

Quite the achievement, considering. The most remarkable they did that night was order takeout.

 

 

*

 

 

The thing about running away from most of the world is that it tends to shoot at you, and it doesn't tend to discriminate. It doesn't tend to give you break, either.

They're drunk. More or less. Tel Aviv can entertain certain intentions and it has been a night.

"I was on the other side before the good ol' side," Benny slurs. "Ain't hard to transition. Wanted man? Fuck it, set the expectation that low and I'll meet it for _fun_."

Meyer already has his fingers in Benny's hair, at the back of his neck. He twists the grip tight but lets Benny kiss him, more than once. Charlie is undressed on the mattress. He was told to wait. He is always so good. When Meyer backs Benny towards the bed he pushes back, bites at Meyer's lip, but he doesn't want to wait any more than Charlie does.

Meyer slips his thumb in Benny's mouth, looks at Charlie. "What can he do with you?"

"Anything," Charlie says, too quick, too honest.

Meyer's eyes meet Benny's and there's a chill there, a warning. Benny wouldn't have it any other way. From no one else, but.

Meyer isn't anyone else.

That they can agree on.

Charlie says please as _prettily_ as Benny has heard in his life, and Benny presses into him as evenly as he can, gets ahead of himself but tries with limited success to keep time with Meyer's hand spread against the small of his back, Meyer's hand on Charlie's wrist above his head.

Meyer traces the straining muscles at Charlie's waist gently, next, asks for permission over and over, like a dance, like Charlie would ever say anything but yes. Strung out and wanting more. He arches under Meyer's hands and sobs apologies, because he didn't ask, no one said he could, and Meyer tells him how good he is even as he keeps fucking him just as careful, just as slow.

It's a dance. When they curl together later, though. There's nothing organised about that. But it's so warm.

 

 

 

 

> _5 October 2013, in Budapest: Benny makes the call he was ordered to, Charlie makes no sound as he falls, Meyer does the only thing that makes any sense._

 

 

Benny has his orders. Benny is told the Soldier is the greater risk. His gut says otherwise, but he has orders and he's tired, and he sends for back-up when he should.

It is over 36 hours before the SHIELD recovery team finish identifying the bodies; there was no one to call it in.

Twelve of the bodies are operatives of the United States and allied forces who were authorised to be in Hungary, and their deaths are recorded.

~~Three of the bodies are not ident-~~

Twelve deaths are recorded.

 

 

 

 

>   _5 October 2013, in Budapest: Benny makes a different call, Meyer makes good on a first impression, Charlie means what he says and says what he doesn't quite mean._

 

 

Benny has his orders. Benny is told the Soldier is the greater risk. This is bullshit, and he knows it. Back-up, quite honestly, can go fuck itself.

"Hey now," the archer says as Meyer braces himself, the boy's hands raised to the sky in faux surrender. He has followed them across four borders and danced out of Meyer's sight more than once, he's dangerous and Meyer can respect that, will respect that. "Hey there. So I'm thinking you've been chasing the same guys I have. I'm thinking you and the Robocop you've got on a leash there might want to have a chat with me."

"I should bring you the leash?" Charlie asks, from where he has put himself on Meyer's blindside, coiled and ready, and Meyer flinches.

There were things. Things they found, worse than that. Places they burned down.

 _He is not asking for that_ , Meyer says, not in english, because sometimes he's a- sometimes this needs to be private. _If he was asking for that I would kill him now._ Charlie blinks, slow. He doesn't say anything because he has said it before and Meyer does not need a reminder of it when the words are already seared into his fucking memory.  _Please. I could like it if it was for you._

"You were sent to terminate us," Meyer says turning back to the archer, because fuck it, sometimes he's a coward.

"Yeah," The archer says. He's younger than Meyer but he's certain, somehow, they both know intimately that it makes no difference. It hits him to the stomach, a little. Americans do this too. Of course they do. "Yeah, I was. But I was thinking you fellas might be able to convince me to make a different call. Name is Benny."

After a halted moment Meyer looks him straight in the eye and raises one eyebrow.  Benny isn't the only one to take the cue and relax - Charlie shifts closer, and curls two fingers around Meyer's thumb.

"Gross." Benny says, long-suffering. "Esta is going to go crazy over you two."

  
  
*

 

Charlie only sees a child, and Meyer sees  - Benny isn't sure what Meyer sees, but whatever it is it makes him tense up, following at the heels of his boy without stopping to listen as Benny tries to tell them that crocodiles in the sewers, however much radiation they're mixed with, are a punchline and not an emergency. What Benny sees is mostly a teenage idiot.

  
As it turns out, spiderdude-who-is-even-smaller-than-Meyer has a lot of friends, and half the Avengers turn up, as well as a few bargain basement X-Men and some sort of sword-wielding fuckwit that won't shut up.

Charlie heads down to draw fire while Meyer goes for the spider-infant, so Benny has about three seconds to decide if he wants to play quarterback or defense. It ends up on the streets, quite literally, high speed and more property damage than even Margaret might be able to smooth over. Benny is at the wheel and Charlie has punched out the window to take better aim. Four storeys up Meyer has his hand on the kid's wrist, and Charlie has no sense of perspective right now. Benny is going to have to fill in. "Trust me?" Benny asks, shouting through the wind tunnel. "You trust me, right?"

Buildings are falling, and Charlie is ignoring them to glare at him, skirting the edges of petulant. "I trust _Meyer_." He says. The implication that it is more or less the same thing sits lightly but there, just for a moment, and Benny will deny until he dies that he can't find the right words to respond.

"Okay," Benny says, and pushes him out of the car.

He hits the ground like a fucking work of art and rolls on impact, reaching out into the space where a cop's motorbike will be, shifting momentum to grasp the handlebars and draw the whole damn machine in an arc through the air and landing on it as it hits the ground and keeps moving. The cop has hit the ground with a groan; worse than the average sunday, better than oversized alligator claws. It's fucking cool. It is infuriating to have to admit that.

When the shooting stops Charlie melts away, like he always does. The rest of them make eager for the open space and the public credit. Or something similar, and Benny doesn't care enough to dissect the varying truth of that for each of them. They've dropped half of ninth avenue after seven guys with a severe skin condition. He's not about to lay claim to anything except the fact that Meyer has emerged in one piece with spider-niblet in tow.

The idiot in red takes one look at Meyer and doubles over laughing while saying ''recast of _my dreams_ ," so Benny just fucking shoots him.  

"Oh, jesus." Says the spiderchild, taking his mask off. Meyer and puts a hand on the kid's shoulder and he relaxes a little. He looks from Meyer to Benny. "Dude, ew. How did you even know Wade will get better from that?"

"He'll what?" says Benny.

 

  
  
*

 

  
  
_Please_ , Charlie says.

It tends to work. They don't need it, or so they say, over and over. He doesn't need to. But they also tell Charlie that it is different now, he's allowed to ask for things. They say that.

The cuffs are just normal steel. He could break them, trying to. They would slow him down, though, maybe enough, if he was half-asleep and lashing out at a dream.

"Please," he says, laid out under Meyer's hands, and the shiver is there, the shiver runs up his spine and stays, far after Meyer is done. Maybe it is not needed. Maybe it is just for show.

He can be for show, if they need. He can be good at that.

"Please," he says, and it hurts Meyer, and he hates that, but it's better, cuffed to the wall and knowing he's safe.

If they don't like it enough he pretends to be well, and he tries.

There's a party  - of course there is. Margaret hosts beautifully. It's a wonderful party. There are so many people.

Charlie smiles and nods and dances until he's not sure whose arms he's being put into, but he goes willingly. His heart is too fast and someone takes him aside. They should take a belt. They should give him what deserves, then they should put it around his neck. He tries to tell them. He'll be better. He's had worse. He's sorry, if he can't focus. Hit him hard enough and he will, he's sure, he's sorry.

"Charlie," Meyer says later, hands either sides of Charlie's face. "Are you here?"

"Yes," Charlie promises.

Meyer puts a belt around his neck and pulls it tight enough that the world stops spinning, kisses his forehead like he's precious, like he matters, like everything is alright.

It tends to work.

 

  
  
  
*

 

  
  
Charlie is sitting on the table, mug in hand and wearing the oversized white t-shirt and gray pants Margaret gave him for the gym, softer than Meyer had been aware fabric could be. Owen has thrown projected screens in the air close enough for him to touch, and he's leaning in, wide-eyed. He's holding coffee, maybe. Hot chocolate, maybe. Hard to tell with Billie. Meyer stays at the doorway for a moment. Some moments are worth that.

"- awards in 1948, followed by Harrison Ford and Karen Allen's Flags Before Dawn in 1981, and a cult classic remake of the original film in 1996 featuring Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Danes. Sir should also know that in 2012 studios decided to-"

"God, no." Billie cuts off, abruptly. She is leaning against the table but not against Charlie, careful. Good nature or a civilian's naivete, Meyer has yet to work it out. But she smiles and nods at Meyer in the doorway before turning back to Charlie, and she never asks Meyer's permission when she could put it to Charlie first, and Meyer would probably take out mid-sized national governments for her.

"I mean. Channing Tatum, for the love of... look, but that's just my opinion. There are good ones too."

"Mey," Charlie says, soft. "There's movies of- of him."

"Yes," Meyer says.

Charlie reaches out to the one Billie gestured at and a clip starts playing. On the screen, Montgomery Clift is in black and white and has tussled hair and bruises, is smiling through it lopsidedly and tilting his head down just a little to look through his eyelashes at Elizabeth Taylor as she stands up, every stitch and perfect curl of Lady Liberty, beautiful and determined.

Perched on the kitchen table, one leg swinging absently, Charlie mimics the expression, tries it on for size.

"You're a hell of a dame, Angie," says Montgomery Clift, back-alley Brooklyn in every word, shoulders drawn tight and eyes soft. "But you're crazy if you think I'm leaving here without you."

Meyer has moved closer despite himself, but for no reason. Charlie smiles. "You're a hell of a dame," Charlie says, with the cadence to match. "Doctor Kent." After Billie laughs and presses a kiss to his cheek he looks at Meyer, unbearably hopeful. It's not quite right. It's not wrong. He sounds younger than when he falls into Meyer's mothertongue, endearments or pleading, and that could mean anything.

Meyer steps forward and wraps his arms around Charlie's waist, and Charlie tilts to him, screens forgotten. His Charlie is more than what they tried to make him to be, Meyer always knew that. His Charlie might be something of this silver screen dream. Meyer would not be surprised by that, either.  

His Charlie is-

His Charlie _is_.

 

 


End file.
